‘Hot Tub Meta’ Trend on Twitch Has Users All Hot and Bothered (And Not in a Good Way)

Like everything else on the internet, it was only a matter of time until Twitch got sexualized. What’s surprising about its transformation from gaming platform to wannabe porn site, however, is that its users are boiling mad about it.

There’s a new trend on Twitch called “hot tub meta,” in which female streamers appear live on camera in itty bitty bikinis in backyard pools. They earn money by playing video games and/or responding to other users’ messages (which sounds eerily similar to webcam girls…).

Twitcher Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa is cashing in on the trend by charging her 500,000 followers $50 to scrawl their names on her body during her streaming sessions.

“I think it’s pretty universal that people like seeing pretty ladies in bikinis,” Spoopy Kitt, a popular lobster-riding streamer on the platform, told the New York Post. “Hot tubs have become the new and effective way streamers are using to ‘win the game.’”

Photo: Spoopy Kitt (Twitch)

But not everyone wants to play that game. Some think it cheapens the site, promotes misogyny, and provides inappropriate content to users as young as 13.

“Twitch needs to accept the fact that they are nothing more than a glorified softcore website, pornhub 2.0,” one unimpressed user complained on the “Livestreamfails” Reddit page.

“Why are you so angry? It works for a reason. It’s free for you,” Twitch superstar Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter asked in a recent video. “I don’t get what the issue is. If no one is hurting anyone, then what’s the issue?”

To its credit, the platform does have guidelines that prohibit full-on nudity. It requires that users’ attire “completely covers the genitals” and that female users “cover their nipples.” (Now that seems sexist. No one wants to see dudes’ nipples.) Those who show too much skin risk getting banned. (Talk about game over.)

We understand where hardcore gamers are coming from; can’t there just be one site on the internet that isn’t aimed at the joystick in your pants? (Or the wallet in your pocket?) And yet, who are we to turn away when a pretty lady wants to strut her stuff in a bikini?

Cover Photo: XoAeriel (Twitch)

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